A potential performance bottleneck for a computer system can occur when a processor reads data from, or writes data to, storage media, such as a hard disk drive. Placing a cache memory system between the processor and the storage media decouples the processor from the slower access speeds of the storage media, which reduces this performance bottleneck. The cache memory system operates at the processor's memory bus speed and stores substantial amounts of data at higher speed until the data can subsequently be written to the storage media by the cache memory system at the slower access speeds. Consequently, the cache memory system requires a substantial amount of nonvolatile memory. Typically, this nonvolatile memory is implemented using volatile dynamic random access memory (DRAM) with some form of backup power, such as a backup battery unit or a hold-up capacitor, to prevent data loss.